The Sting of the Rain
by RavenHeart101
Summary: "It felt as though someone had crawled into his body and pulled out his most vital organs, leaving him rotting in an alley until he would pass away into nothingness." Or the story of why Blaine missed the fifth week of his senior year and the fall and rise from there on out. SeBlaine. Trigger warning.
1. Chapter 1

The Sting of the Rain

By: RavenHeart101

Summary: "It felt as though someone had crawled into his body and pulled out his most vital organs, leaving him rotting in an alley until he would pass away into nothingness." Or the story of why Blaine missed the fifth week of his senior year and the fall and rise from there on out.

Warnings: Male/Male pairing, mention of non-con, date rape, assault, swearing, trigger warning, verbal abuse/emotional abuse/some physical abuse, a general rising from the ashes.

I'm not going to lie and say this story is going to be happy because it's really not going to be.

**A: N –** Don't ask. Enjoy the angst. I love you all. This is a different style than I usually write….

This is my first adventure into the SeBlaine fics. Oh my… and to think I'm doing it with angst.

* * *

"_So here you are two steps ahead and saying on guard. Every lesson forms a new scar. They never thought you'd make it this far." ~_Eyes Open by Taylor Swift

* * *

"You ready, squirt?" Cooper's fist banged against his door both loud and light, jerking Blaine out of his reverie. He pushed himself up from his bed, shaking his head to get rid of the memories that were plaguing his thoughts. It had been a month now. He was okay.

He was okay.

Maybe if he repeated that enough to himself it would come true.

He straightened his collar and unlocked his bedroom door, pulling it open to face Cooper's happy, yet cautious, face, Blaine's book bag slung over his shoulder.

"When are you going back to California?" Blaine asked as they walked down the stairs. "Not that I don't like having a personal chauffeur, or anything." He shrugged, trying to ignore the way Cooper's shoulders had tensed at the question. Almost as though he didn't want to answer in worry of saying something that would ruin the truce they had called the year before.

"Whenever they want me." Cooper patted Blaine's shoulder as he walked passed him, unlocking the car and climbing into the driver's seat.

Blaine let out a weary sigh. He knew why Cooper wasn't going back to California. Just like he knew why he had to repeat to himself over and over that he was okay.

All because of that one night weeks ago.

It was the same reason why Blaine had lost all contact with the Warblers – namely one Sebastian Smythe – and it was the same reason why Blaine had chosen to fade into the background of New Directions and let Artie, Tina, and Sam take over things for a while.

It was easier that way, anyway.

Blaine was as good at blending in as he was at standing out. And blending in was easy – perhaps a bit too easy, but what did they expect Blaine to do? He wasn't about to run to them crying about how pathetic his life was. He wasn't that kind of person and it was about time they all learned that.

He huffed, tugging his jacket closer to his body and shutting his eyes, letting his forehead rest against the cool glass of the window. He didn't sleep much last night. Actually, he hadn't been getting much sleep at all. Usually when he would sleep he'd wake up in a tangle of sheets with sweat dripping down all panels of his body and a scream on his lips. Nightmares were a bitch and, even though he'd had them plenty of times before, none quite surmounted to the kind that his brain were making up this time.

His mind flashed to the most recent one _– it was bright out. Daylight, daylight, daylight. And there were birds chirping. Bricks against his back. Dalton. McKinley. He couldn't be sure. Laughing. Jeering. Taunting. You want this. You want this. You deserve this. Yelling for help, always yelling for help. Only no help came. No one came. Alone. Alone. Alone_. – Cooper nudged his shoulder; his eyes alight with concern when Blaine nearly jumped out of his skin.

Perhaps he had fallen asleep again. Or perhaps he had just been sucked into a dream.

Because it hadn't been daylight out.

He hadn't screamed for help.

It hadn't been at a school.

And, even though they had been too late, someone had come.

They had stayed with him for a whole day. Then they had left.

Blaine grabbed onto the door handle, leaning across the center console to give Cooper a quick, one-armed hug. "I'll see you when school gets out?" He didn't have to ask – Cooper would be there whether Blaine wanted him to be or not – but he did anyway. Just for familiarity sake or something like that. Maybe. Blaine could never be sure of things these days.

"Of course." Cooper pat his back gently and with a protective grip at the same time, his eyes shining a bit but Blaine paid them no noticeable mind besides leaning up to give Cooper's cheek a quick, brief kiss and letting him hug him a bit longer than usual. "Three. Any later and I'm throwing that school apart for you."

Blaine laughed dryly – not a real laugh, but as close as he had done for the past month – closing his door behind him and walking up to the school looking as though he had a purpose. Blaine may have been blending into the shadows nowadays, but he knew that if he didn't act as though he had reason to be there the homophobic jocks would be all over him. It wouldn't do for him to be noticed now. He didn't want to be noticed now.

So he kept his head down in the figurative sense and his chin up in the real sense. He avoided eye contact with most everyone and gripped his bag tighter.

Blaine could already feel a migraine pulling at the tip of his mind.

His locker in sight, Blaine turned right, letting out a breath he hadn't even realized he had been holding once he reached the metal. He allowed himself a moment of relief, leaning his head against the cool metal before straightening and spinning out his combination. 37-6-18. He grabbed his books and headed off for his first class.

Routine. Routine.

Blaine could do routine.

"Blaine!" He jumped at the familiar voice, flinching a bit when a hand landed on his shoulder. Mister Schuester gave him a curious look but he shrugged it off like most people did nowadays. Blaine was just generally jumpy. It was nothing. Had to do with the bullying and nothing else. "I was looking through the list of people trying out for the musical this year and your name wasn't on the list."

Blaine wondered if there was some plausible reason for Mister Schuester to be stating the obvious. Blaine didn't answer; instead he shifted his books onto his other arm, looking at the wall behind Mister Schuester rather than the man himself. "I just wanted to know if everything is okay with you." Mister Schuester reached out to touch his arm, but seemed to change his mind at the last second, his hand falling back to his side. "If the bullying has gotten worse or if it's getting harder to deal with… you're not alone Blaine."

He pushed back a sardonic laugh and forced a show smile on his face. It fooled the teacher – Blaine knew it fooled him because sometimes it even fooled himself sometimes. "I've just fallen behind in some of my studies, Mister Schue. I can't afford to have that happen in my senior year." He shrugged and began to walk towards his classroom again, the warning bell chiming from above. "I'm going to be late." He jerked his thumb towards his classroom, nearly sprinting for the door and falling into his seat with a loud sigh.

Sam looked at him from the corner of his eye – his Forensics Lab partner and fellow Glee Clubber – his notebook out in front of him. He pushed it over to Blaine's side of the table slowly, as if to get his attention. There was a question sprawled out across it in Sam's messy handwriting but Blaine didn't pay it any mind. He didn't want to pay it any mind.

To put it simply, Blaine didn't want to pass notes today.

Blaine hadn't wanted to pass notes in a long time, actually. Yet Sam kept trying.

Sam was a good friend. If a bit persistent and naïve.

Rather him than Sugar – it seemed as though Blaine had become her most recent charity case.

"You can't ignore me forever." Sam leaned closer to whisper. Blaine didn't pay him any mind. He wasn't ignoring him. He was trying to stick to the routine.

And the routine didn't include passing notes with Sam Evans.

"Listen, dude." Sam's hand coved his lower arm, halting his motion of writing the date on the top of his paper. "I know you miss him, okay? I know."

Missed who? Who did Blaine miss? "Who do I miss?" Blaine asked slowly and lowly, his eyes never leaving his paper, but his hand making no motion to pull out of Sam's surprisingly limb grip. He would let Blaine go if he really wanted to be let go.

Too bad Blaine's brain wasn't quite up for figuring that out right now.

Sam's eyebrows furrowed and his hand fell onto the empty table in between them. "Kurt." Sam paused for what Blaine assumed was everyday dramatic effect. "Your ex-boyfriend that you dumped in New York?"

Oh. Right.

Blaine supposed he was upset about that. Maybe not the right kind of upset but he was upset.

Sometimes he couldn't help wondering just what it was that Kurt would do if he knew what had happened to Blaine. Sometimes he wondered if it would have even happened if he hadn't made the decision to break up with Kurt in the first place.

But Kurt had moved on. He had a nice new boyfriend in New York and he was happy and even though it hurt it didn't hurt that much.

Blaine had become almost numb to all of the hurt he was feeling lately.

He figured that was a good thing.

"Blaine?" Sam's hand found his own again, his eyes alight with concern. His hand was shaking in a way that it tended to do nowadays. Blaine hated it when it shook but there was nothing he could do about it.

Suddenly, he wasn't so sure he could make it through the day.

Today was one of the bad days, he decided. One of the really really bad days where nothing went the way it was supposed to.

One of the bad days where he could feel every rush of air as it pulled itself from his lungs.

One of the bad days where he was consumed by fear and a deep seated pain and he just wanted run _run run. Have to run. Have to get out of here_.

Blaine didn't even bother telling the teacher where he was going. His chair scraped backwards and he slung his back over his shoulder, running from the room, his back impossibly straight and a hand over his mouth in the cover that he was going to be sick.

Except it wasn't a complete act. He might actually be sick.

He ran into a bathroom – girls, boys, Blaine didn't know. Nor did he care – the stalls already blurry in front of him. His breath came in short, shallow gasps, his heart pounding in his chest.

The door clanged against the wall but Blaine didn't have the peace of mind to think of locking it, dropping to his knees and throwing up what little Cooper had been able to force him into having for breakfast. His heart still pounded in his chest, sweat still dripped down his forehead, and his breath still wasn't even.

He crossed his hands over his heart, trying to will the thoughts away. Trying to will the panic to subside. He tried to remember the things Cooper would do to calm him down. He tried to remember the way Sebastian had gotten him to breathe in the hospital that night. He tried to remember something, anything, but that night.

"_It's beautiful, isn't it?" Kurt's hand waved around at the park around them, his arm linked through Blaine and his voice chirping like a bird in Blaine's ear. Blaine smiled at him, a bit sadly. He couldn't bring himself to be truly happy when he knew what was going to happen next. Once Rachel and Finn had gotten sufficiently far enough ahead of them that they wouldn't be overheard. _

"_Yeah." Blaine answered softly, his voice trailing off at the end. _

_Kurt pulled them to a halt, his eyes concerned – what color where they again? Turquoise? That's what they looked like that night, anyway – and his lips pursed. "Are you okay? You've been suspiciously quiet this whole day." _

_He had been. He had been trying not to be. He wanted it to be an enjoyable day for the both of them. _

_Guess that hadn't worked out as well as he had hoped it would. "Just thinking." He said with a sort of half smile. _

"_About what?" Kurt smiled teasingly at him – Blaine loved that smile. _

_Blaine stared at him for a moment. How stunning he looked in the lights of the city. How much happier he seemed here. Maybe it wasn't the best time for him to do this, but maybe it was the only time for him to do this. "Us." It came out softer than intended. His eyes watering suspiciously. Kurt's face paled. _

"_What about us?" Kurt's breath hitched. Blaine knew he got it. Knew he had been thinking the same thing himself, he just hadn't been willing to bring it up. _

"_Kurt…" Blaine swallowed, looking passed Kurt and over to Rachel and Finn, the two of them walking happily down the walkway, their hands clasped between them, Rachel leaning her head on Finn's shoulder. His heart screamed out in protest. He licked his lips. _

"_If you're going to do this Blaine, just do it." Kurt snapped, his voice a lot meaner than he must have intended. Blaine flinched back. He knew Kurt didn't mean it to be as harsh as it was – or maybe he did, who was Blaine to know? – but it still hurt. _

"_I don't think we can do this." He whispered, hating his voice for breaking, betraying how sure he was that they actually could do this. Showing how much he wasn't sure if they both wanted to do this. _

"_Don't think we can do this or don't want to do this?" Kurt's voice was cold but Blaine knew he was holding back tears. Blaine knew Kurt enough to know that he was hurt. Anger was just his default emotion when he was in pain. _

_Blaine could sympathize with that. At least Kurt didn't shut down. "I want to do this-." _

"_So do this!" Kurt's emotions got the better of him, his voice breaking. _

"_But I don't want to hold you back." Blaine's own voice cracked and he looked down at his shoes, scuffing them against the dirt. _

_Kurt's eyes softened and his hand touched Blaine's sleeve gently, comfortingly. He always had that soft touch that could make Blaine change his mind about anything. "You're not going to hold me back." Kurt threw his head back for a moment, almost as though he was exasperated. "We've talked about this before, Blaine. I'm not going anywhere." _

"_You should be." Blaine refused to look at him. If he looked at him he wouldn't do this. He had to do this. He had to set him free. "You should be doing what Rachel did. You should be finding guys left and right and being happy and not thinking of me every day and… I can't watch you get brought down because you're worrying about me back in Ohio. I can't." _

"_Why are you doing this?" Kurt's hand fell limp to his side, his eyes wide and tears falling from his eyes. _

"_Because I love you." Blaine heaved a deep breath, looking Kurt in the eye this time. "Because I love you so much that it hurts. Because…" His eyes shut for a moment. "Because I'm afraid you don't love me the same." _

_Kurt looked stricken, his mouth open wide as though he were insulted. "How dare you-?" _

"_And maybe it's just my low self-esteem talking but I can't feel guilty about you being in New York without me. I can't do it." He was crying himself now, no matter how much he was trying to keep it all at bay. "I can't watch you hold yourself back because of me." He dropped his hands to his sides. "I have to let you go." He whispered brokenly. Kurt stared at him in betrayal for a long moment before he made a noise in the back of his throat and stormed away. _

_Ran away. _

_Crying. _

_Blaine pressed his palm to his mouth, tears finally falling from his eyes. Painful tears. Painful sobs. _

He lurched forward again, grabbing the cold porcelain and dry heaving over the water. He fell forward with a loud sob, his head falling against the lid.

There was nothing Blaine wanted more than Kurt's comforting touch on his back, rubbing soothing circles or his voice in his ear telling him that it was okay.

He wrapped his arms around his waist tightly, curling in on himself and praying that no teachers or other students would wander in. He prayed mostly, however, for the pain to go away.

_Please, God, make the pain go away. Make the nightmares stop. Please, please, please. Let me forget. Let me forget._

* * *

Glee that day was like Glee any day. It was busy, and almost every conversation seemed to be held through yelling and song. Blaine sat in the far corner of the choir room – unlike when he used to sit in the front earlier in the year. Now he understood exactly why it was that Puck had always chosen this corner.

Basically, Blaine wasn't bothered.

He sat with his headphones in his ears, some soothing music flowing through the earbuds. Piano music. Slow jazz. The sort of stuff that he always had on a playlist made specifically to relax.

That was the only playlist Blaine usually listened to nowadays.

No Katy Perry. No Michael Jackson. No Pink.

If the Warblers could see him now.

Well, that would be particularly hard for them to do since they hadn't made any effort to talk to him for almost a month. Or maybe he hadn't been making the effort?

He wasn't too sure anymore. "Blaine?" He snapped out of his thoughts, his hand yanking one of his earbuds out with a shocked look on his face. No one had bothered to talk to him for a month and now suddenly people were scrambling at his feet to speak with him?

Well, that was rude. They had talked to him. He hadn't exactly spoken back.

He wasn't the best conversationalist nowadays.

"Yes?" He asked whoever it was that had been talking to him.

"I was wondering if you would like to join us today." Mister Schuester's voice held no room for argument. And, even if Blaine didn't want to, he found himself at the center of the room with the rest of the club, being paired up with Tina for their newest dance routine.

For Sectionals.

Well Blaine really had been missing out on a lot, huh?

Tina smiled brightly at him and Blaine couldn't help the fake one he sent back.

It wasn't completely fake, but it was fake enough to get the illusion that he was incredibly happy across.

Sometimes he wished he could go back to acting like an overactive puppy. Maybe that would get people off his case. "I'm sorry." Tina put a hand gently on his own and her touch was almost as comforting as Kurt's used to be.

Blaine shook those thoughts from his head.

There was nothing he could do about Kurt's absence from his life. He had made his decision a long time ago.

To be honest, Blaine wasn't even sure if he was even still in love with Kurt. Or if he just missed the times where he could be bring himself to be happy.

Maybe he should go back onto those pills the doctors had put him on after Sadie Hawkins.

"For what?" He asked cautiously. Did he really want to know what she was apologizing for?

Oh, God… what if she knew?

Then what would he do?

Blaine forced himself to swallow, pushing back his rising panic and tilting his head in question at her. "For Kurt." She shrugged.

"Oh." That was easy enough to shrug off. Kurt, Kurt, Kurt. So long as everyone kept believe that he was messed up because of Kurt things would be okay. "You didn't cause any of it." He shrugged. "Not like it's your fault."

"No." Tina nodded her head in agreement. "It's just… It's obvious how messed up you are over it. And it's obvious how not messed up he is over it." Her eyes were sympathetic. "I'm just sorry that he wasn't as invested as you were."

"That's not true." Blaine cut her off. Tina looked at him with a growing confusion. "Kurt was plenty invested. He didn't do anything wrong." Even fought for Blaine to come back. _Fifty text messages and twenty missed calls. Sebastian had pressed ignore on every single one of them and told him that he had done the right thing – the honorable thing_. And where was Sebastian now?

Well Blaine didn't know.

Tina and he didn't say anything else for the rest of the lesson, Blaine the last one to leave the room besides Mister Schuester. Luckily, the teacher was distracted by Miss Pillsbury so he didn't have to worry about being pestered about trying out for the play or taking a solo or doing something that would put him out there and in that spotlight again.

2:30. He had half an hour to kill before Cooper got there.

Blaine sat outside, his jacket on the ground beneath his worn jeans and a book open in his lap. A book on philosophy and Plateau. He drowned himself in the words, his sunglasses propped on his nose.

He looked up as a shadow fell over the page.

"Hey." The familiar Dalton uniform almost made Blaine shrink back into the walls of McKinley.

Blaine's eyes flitted over to the crowd of boys in the corner of the parking lot, neglecting to notice their lead singer talking to their previous lead. His eyes found their way back to Sebastian Smythe. "Hi." He said quietly, his bookmark sliding into the book to hold his page.

"Can I-?"

"Where have you been?" Blaine cut off whatever it was Sebastian was going to ask. The other boy blanched, his face paling instead of blushing, his hand rubbing up his neck and his eyes avoiding Blaine's at all and any cost.

For some reason that made it all hurt more than the thought of Kurt ever did.

"Are you okay?" Sebastian asked instead of answering. Maybe his question hadn't deserved an answer or maybe Sebastian just didn't have one to give.

Blaine shrugged, biting on his lower lip and running his hands over the smooth cover of his book. They didn't speak for a long time, and the other boys still had yet to notice much else besides the sports teams practicing. "Blaine… I'm sorr-"

A horn blared from the space in front of the doors. Blaine glanced at his watch. 3:04.

Cooper was late.

He pushed up from the wall, grabbing hold of his bag and sliding his sunglasses up to his forehead. "See ya." He dismissed. He got a few steps forward before Sebastian's hand was on his wrist, pulling him back.

Blaine flinched and Sebastian let go. His eyes shut in embarrassment. He really needed to learn how to control that. Every person that touched him wasn't a threat.

"Blaine… Are you okay?" It seemed as though it was very important question. And very important questions deserved answers. Or something like that.

Blaine was caught off guard by the sincere worry in Sebastian's voice. His eyes instantly searched his out. His breath caught in his throat and tears started to well in his eyes. He couldn't breathe.

_Had to get out. Runaway. Runaway. Runaway. _

"Yes." He slid his sunglasses back over his eyes and tugged his wrist out of Sebastian's grip, walking towards Cooper's car.

_Have to get out, have to get out. God, please, help me get out._

* * *

**A: N – **Any takers? Pleeease?


	2. Chapter 2

The Sting of the Rain

By: RavenHeart101

Summary: "It felt as though someone had crawled into his body and pulled out his most vital organs, leaving him rotting in an alley until he would pass away into nothingness." Or the story of why Blaine missed the fifth week of his senior year and the fall and rise from there on out.

Warnings: Male/Male pairing, mention of non-con, date rape, assault, swearing, trigger warning, verbal abuse/emotional abuse/some physical abuse, a general rising from the ashes.

I'm not going to lie and say this story is going to be happy because it's really not going to be.

**A: N – **Ohmigosh. The turnout for chapter one? Where did you all come from?! I don't really know how to respond to this sort of turn out… gosh…. –is numb in the corner-

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR KIND WORDS.

* * *

"_I don't know who I am anymore. Not once in life have I been real, but I've never felt this close before." – This Close by Flyleaf_

* * *

Blaine shut the car door, walking around to the passenger seat to retrieve his book bag and the plastic bag full of groceries his mother had asked him to pick up on his way home. The car was his today – or Cooper had let him borrow his car today – since he was sick enough to practically live in the bathroom and not healthy enough not drive Blaine anywhere without needed to pull over every ten minutes to vomit.

Personally, Blaine hated driving anywhere nowadays. He hadn't done it in so long that it felt foreign. It wasn't like riding a bike. It wasn't like singing. It wasn't something that was simply natural and he could do in his sleep.

It was something terrifying and unknown and there were so many variables that he couldn't predict….

"I'm home!" Blaine called out, wincing at how worn his voice sounded.

Guess that was what happened when he rarely spoke over a whisper anymore. He cleared his throat, pushing himself towards the kitchen and placing the bag on the table. His mother barely glanced up at him, turning a page in her magazine and making a humming noise in the back of her throat. Well, that wasn't as shocking as it should have been.

She hadn't said much to him since that night.

It was silent as Blaine put the groceries away and it was silent through dinner and the period of time Blaine spent on his homework. Without Cooper around to make noise (besides the periodic flushing of a toilet) there was no sound.

And if that didn't cause Blaine to nearly panic he wasn't sure what would.

All through dinner he sat tense, back straight and rigid, eyes wide and unseeing, breathing a bit erratic and fork and knife clutched in his hand.

He barely ate.

Not that he ate much these days, anyway. But he ate less than usual – less than what was considered healthy – and he couldn't help but feel as though even that was a chore.

He swallowed heavily, trying to ignore the way his throat was practically dry and counted to ten, placing his empty plate in the sink. His mother didn't even look at him as he pecked her cheek with a nearly silent "good night".

Blaine winced as he walked up the stairs feeling a fear that shouldn't be there creeping up his spine at the mere silence of the house. "One…." He counted the steps under his breath, hoping to keep his mind off things like silence.

Silence wasn't good.

Neither was too much noise but silence.

Silence wasn't good.

_Silence meant he was alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. All alone. And when you're alone things happen. Things that shouldn't happen happen and they don't stop happening. They'll never stop happening. _

He tripped on the top step, nearly slamming his face into the carpet under his feet, but catching himself on the railing at the last minute. Blaine shut his eyes painfully, forcing himself to swallow and not make any sort of sound that would alert Cooper to his current predicament.

Slowly, he lowered himself onto the step, pulling his knees tight to his chest and stuffing his face into the fabric of his jeans. Rough against his forehead.

_Rough. Everything was rough. It hurt. It wasn't supposed to hurt. No one ever said it would hurt. _

Blaine shook his head, trying to rid himself of the memories – nightmares, whatever they were. He tried his hardest to expel the demons from his mind but they wouldn't go.

They just wouldn't leave.

Why wouldn't they just _leave him alone_?

* * *

Sebastian's back hit the leather behind him, his notebook falling onto the floor with a resounding bang. He rested his forehead on his fist, staring at the crackling of the fire as if that would make everything make sense again.

Or make sense the most it could.

Sebastian… well he felt guilty.

It wasn't a feeling he was used to feeling, but it was one he had gotten used to when it came to one Blaine Anderson.

It seemed that even when Sebastian had tried to ignore him for a month he was still haunting his mind.

Not that Sebastian had decided to cut all contact with Blaine because he wanted to. But, then again, he wasn't forced to either. He had just thought…. Well, Sebastian wasn't sure what he had thought. Obviously, he hadn't been thinking much of anything if the result was what he had seen the week earlier at McKinley.

Which brought up another problem all together.

The New Directions wanted to scrimmage with the Warblers. A sort of pre-competition thing.

Sebastian had accepted, along with the rest of the guys, and he had hoped – in some far recess of his mind – that Blaine would be better after a month.

What a stupid thing for him to think.

How could anyone be okay after something like that? And after only a month?

Sebastian almost wished Hummel was still around to verbally abuse him.

His eyes drifted to the window where it was just starting to rain. Like it had that night. That night that Sebastian couldn't seem to forget no matter how much he tried to.

He hadn't even been able to step foot in that place since.

No amount of alcohol, no amount of homework, no amount of exercising, no amount of sleeping had helped Sebastian forget the one thing he wanted to forget more than anything.

_It was hot, and yet all Sebastian could think of was how cold he looked and how much he didn't seem to understand what had happened and how not right this was. This wasn't right at all. None of this was supposed to happen_.

Not for the first time, he found tears sliding down his cheeks and his fist stuffing itself in his mouth to stifle the sobs that would, no doubt, be coming soon.

It wouldn't do for Jeff to hear him and start worrying again.

* * *

Blaine awoke with a start, his body almost tumbling off the staircase. His eyes snapped open as a pitter patter of rain played against the roof of his house. The lights were off – _dark, dark, dark. Darkness is worse than silence _– except for the one in the hall that his mother always left on so that no one would trip on their way to get a bottle of water or something.

He must have fallen asleep.

If that wasn't a miracle in and of itself he didn't know what was.

Blaine curled in tighter around himself, hugging his knees closer to his chest and burying his forehead in them farther. If he kept his eyes shut it wasn't that dark, right? It was just as dark as it was behind his eyelids.

And, oh, that must have been part of the reason why he was afraid to sleep.

The light for the bathroom dragged Blaine's attention from his rapidly deteriorating thoughts.

Today _had_ been a good day.

Until he came home.

He heard a pained moan come from the room and Blaine pushed himself into walking towards the bathroom. Taking care of someone. Blaine could do that. He could do that.

He wet a cloth with cold water and kneeled beside Cooper, brushing back his bangs with a cautious, caring hand. He placed the cloth on the back of his neck, holding back Cooper's bands as he dry heaved again.

He remembered the time he was like this and they had taken care of him.

Cooper and Sebastian.

And, well, he wasn't sick like this, but he was sick.

"You're okay." Blaine whispered softly when Cooper let out another pained moan, resting his head against the cool porcelain on the toilet seat.

At least his fever had broken.

Cooper didn't say anything – not that he had to – his hand squeezing Blaine's knee in an attempt at comforting him. Blaine let a small smile cross over his face – it wasn't fake, but it was hard to produce – even when he was sick, Cooper was trying to be the best brother he could. No matter their problems in the past, the two of them had been through enough together in the past month to be closer than most siblings.

"I'm okay." He whispered, running his hand down Cooper's back in the most comforting gesture he could muster up.

"No you're not." Cooper groaned out, his tired blue eyes looking up at Blaine and his clammy hand reaching up to cup his neck weakly. "Don't lie to me."

Blaine took his hand in his own, squeezing it and holding it over his heart, his eyes glittering in a way that was all too familiar. "Why do we wear masks, Coop?" Blaine asked a small sad smirk to his lips. "To protect the ones we love." He pressed a gentle kiss to Cooper's forehead, pulling him to his feet and walking him back to his room.

"You don't have to protect me." Cooper pressed, pulling Blaine close for a brief hug.

"If I can't protect you than I can't protect me." Blaine stepped out of Cooper's arms, pushing him back towards the bed with a gentle shove. "And we don't want to know what will happen if that happens." He squeezed Cooper's hand before stepping out of the room, closing the door softly behind himself.

Yet it seemed he couldn't shut the door quickly enough, for Cooper's last question still drifted out towards him. "You can't protect yourself from what's inside, Blaine. So why are you trying?"

Blaine ignored it, trying to push the condescending voice in the back of his mind back, going into the bathroom himself with the intent of cleaning his hands. He got as far as turning on the sink before he looked down and saw the mess Cooper had made. It wasn't vomit – thank, God for that – but his brother wasn't exactly the most coordinated when sick.

He reached out to straighten the bottles lining the sink, trying to ignore the way his hands shook. Trying to ignore the way his mind kept unintentionally flashing back to that night he spent in almost the same situation as Cooper.

_Cooper's hand was cool on back, rubbing circles and his voice was trying to keep his mind off the fact that he was in the hospital. Off the fact that he couldn't breathe. It was so hard to breathe. _

Blaine shook his head, fighting back the memory as it fought its way forward. He opened the medicine cabinet, looking for what the doctors had prescribed him years ago.

Sleeping pills. Almost all untouched.

If he just took one the memory would go away.

_It felt as though someone had crawled into his body and pulled out his most vital organs, leaving him rotting in an alley until he would pass away into nothingness._

His hands shook as he opened the bottle.

_He couldn't breathe and it hurt. It hurt so much. _

_It didn't make any sense. Why were they here? What did they mean? What did any of it mean? _

One tiny white pill fell into his hand.

"_Do you remember the first time we met?" A bigger hand took his own, holding it tightly, almost as though its owner was afraid that if he were to let go, he would disappear. Well, Blaine wouldn't blame him. He was a tad afraid of that same thing himself. "You thought I was a freshman and I hadn't realized exactly who you were." Sebastian laughed a bit to himself. "And you had this innate happiness about you. It was infectious and your smile lit up the room." _

_Blaine's eyes looked up at the taller boy, wide in a fear. _

"_I knew I had to get to know you, you know? I just knew that there was something special about you." Sebastian brushed a stray curl from his forehead, leaning in closer, blocking the doctor from his view. "Your favorite comic book is Spiderman because you like how he can keep his sense of humor and still have this massive heart. Your favorite ice cream is chocolate because it's simple but it's also complex. Your favorite book series is the Percy Jackson ones because you love the possibility of mythology. Your favorite singer isn't Katy Perry no matter what people say and is, actually, Ingrid Michaelson because you love how soulful she is." Blaine's eyes fluttered shut. "Most of all, you're a survivor, Blaine Anderson." _

_He into some sort of sleep, his grip on Sebastian's hand tight, and the soft comfort of Cooper's hand on his back. _

The pill fell from his hand and into the sink.

* * *

Blaine was a zombie throughout the next day at school. And by zombie he meant one of those really unattractive kinds that had just successfully managed to crawl out of their grave and were looking for some delicious brains to eat. God, he was a riot when he had no sleep in his system.

He figured it was better than the sleep he got with nightmares.

Cooper still wasn't better, but he was on the right track, and the house was still silent, but Blaine had learned how to remedy that by putting in old movies and having them on without watching them. He rarely left his room – choosing to avoid the presence of his silent mother for the presence of his nearly silent room where he could keep the lights on all night.

"Blaine!" His head snapped up at the stern calling of his name, his eyes wide as the entirety of New Directions turned to look at him.

Mister Schuester had an insulted – or maybe disgusted, perhaps that's what worry from that teacher looked like – look on his face. "Yes?" Blaine rushed to ask, worried that if he didn't he would get yelled at again.

"Have you even been paying attention?" Artie asked from his chair, and, yes, he was definitely insulted.

"I-I haven't gotten much sleep lately." _The best lies come from the truth, Shawn. _Gosh when had he become so much of a nerd that he started quoting things? "I'm so sorry. It'll never happen again." Although, it probably would happen again.

Really, it was Blaine's own fault for sitting in the middle today and not in the back in that secluded corner no one paid any mind to. Why he had thought to sit in his old seat was beyond him. He sighed and crossed his arms tightly against his chest, making a point to at least act as though he was paying attention to what it was Artie and Mister Schuester were saying to the entirety of the club.

Except they weren't talking anymore.

And before Blaine knew it Mister Schuester was dropping into the seat beside him, leaning forward to talk to him. Blaine stared at the wall behind Mister Schuester's eyes – _your eyes tell everything there is to know about, Blaine – _Kurt had told him that once– his arms still crossed stubbornly over his chest. He tried his hardest to avoid flinching when the teacher's hand fell onto his knee.

If Blaine had his way the only person allowed to touch him would be Cooper.

That sounded so wrong on so many levels.

Blaine shook his head to clear it from his disjointed thoughts when he realized that Mister Schuester was talking to him. "… And I'm worried about you, Blaine. We all are."

"What?" Blaine asked since it seemed his filter no longer existed.

Mister Schuester squeezed his knee and Blaine flinched back harder than was probably necessary. "That." The teacher nodded his eyes bright with concern. "Blaine if someone's hurting you-."

"You'll what?" It came out harsher than intended, and Blaine immediately regretted the words the moment they came out of his mouth. "Why is it that everyone notices the outcome but not the event?"

Mister Schuester's hand reached out for his knee again, but he seemed to think better of it, his body turning to block the rest of the club from Blaine's view and forcing him to make uncomfortable eye contact. Blaine shuffled down farther in his seat, praying that if he went any lower the teacher wouldn't be able to get any closer. And that the farther down he went the harder it would be to keep eye contact. "Blaine… did someone hurt you?"

"Plenty of people have hurt me, Mister Schuester." Blaine shrugged as though it was nothing – even though it was everything.

"Blaine if someone hurt you, you have to tell someone." He reached out and touched Blaine's arm. "You can't keep this all buried up inside. It's going to kill you."

His touch was cold and _it was too cold. Too cold. Too cold. It was too cold and he had to get warm. He had to get warm. "Fuck!" Something heavy over his shoulders and green. Pretty green._

He jerked back from Mister Schuester's hand, pushing himself to his feet with a disgustingly loud screech of the metal chair legs against the floor.

The room filled with silence, the rest of the club turning to look at them with wide, gossip curious eyes.

Not a single kind face in sight.

"I-I'm not feeling very well." Blaine said as an explanation, practically sprinting from the room and to where his locker was located.

Was he going to be sick? Blaine wasn't sure. He didn't feel like he was going to be sick.

But he didn't feel anything but trapped and disgusting and partially horrified and crap!

He punched his locker as hard as he could, the pain that spread through the broken skin on his knuckles a welcome change from the pain that was spreading through his every other nerve.

"Fuck!" Blaine startled at the familiar voice – at the familiar term, of the familiar almost everything – his body stiffening as the other boy came to stand behind him, his hand tentatively taking Blaine's hand into his own and surveying the damage with trained eyes. "Is there any reason you decided to beat up metal?"

Blaine stared at him, speechless.

No eye contact.

_Don't make eye contact and they'll leave you alone. They'll never know._ "I was angry." Blaine whispered as an explanation.

It didn't seem good enough.

Sebastian's eyes stared at him in concerned curiosity. Or was that something else? It didn't look as though it was simply concern. "Do you feel better?"

Blaine took a moment to consider his answer. Did he feel better? If anything he felt worse, a twisting in his stomach that was largely unsettling and uncomfortable and Blaine knew what it was going to lead to. "No." He muttered, swallowing thickly and pushing away from the other boy, walking briskly towards one of the bathrooms. This late in the school day no one would care which one he went into. Not that they cared on any given day – he was gay, if anything his classmates thought he should be sharing a bathroom with the girls.

Footsteps clicked down the hall after him, soft, yet loud, and filling the silent halls with something besides Blaine's deep, not-normal breathing. "Are you going to be all right?"

"I'm fine." Blaine shoved open the bathroom door, running to the nearest stall and dropping his back somewhere along the way.

"The hell you are." Sebastian muttered before dropping to his knees behind him.

It must have been a decidedly unattractive sight, but Blaine couldn't bring himself to care. Tears burned at the corners of his eyes and he would have figured he would have lost the ability to produce tears after how many he'd let out in the past month.

He coughed, flinching when Sebastian's warm hand brushed over his undone curls.

He hadn't had time to put much gel in after gym earlier that day, and figuring it was only Glee in the afternoon he hadn't bothered to go and reapply some after classes. Which left him where he was now. Vomiting into the toilet at his third high school – again – with one of the five people in the universe that actually knew what was causing it.

Or at least had a vague idea of what was causing it.

"I'm sorry." It took a lot for those words to come out of Sebastian Smythe's mouth, Blaine knew that.

Just like he knew it wasn't fair for Sebastian to be blaming himself.

It was just one of those things that Blaine would acknowledge no matter how much he didn't want to acknowledge anything.

"It's not your fault." Blaine reached behind him, grabbing one of Sebastian's hands and holding it close to his chest, his stomach jumping in that uncomfortable way once more, causing him to fly back over the toilet's edge. His stomach heaved, pain settling in and informing him that he didn't have much left for him to throw up.

"It's not yours either." Sebastian spoke quietly, his hand turning around to press their palms together, their fingers linking tightly, and his other hand running over Blaine's neck in the most comforting way he seemed to know.

"It hurts." Blaine admitted after a moment of silence, his cheek resting against the cold porcelain.

Sebastian seemed to be a loss of an answer, his hand simply squeezing Blaine's tighter and his body pressing a bit closer.

"The Warblers are scrimmaging the New Directions soon." Sebastian spoke softly, filling the silence. Blaine felt the need to thank him for that, but the words wouldn't come. "Your teacher asked me to come in to speak about song choice."

"Oh." Blaine muttered, his hand gaining the familiar tremor again.

"We can ditch?"

"_No we can't." _

"_Sure we can. Who's going to catch us?" _

"_It's doesn't matter who's going to catch us. We can't just ditch." _

"_You need some time away from this shit hole." _

"_You don't know what you're talking about." _

"_Everything that's here… It reminds you of him. I know it does." _

"_Stop pretending to care that we broke up." _

"_Okay. If you stop pretending like you don't want to skip with me." _

"_Sebastian." _

"_Please?" _

"… _Fine." _

"No… I think I better go home." Blaine spoke slowly, shaking himself out of the memory as best he could and pushing himself back to his feet. "Cooper's sick and I have his car."

Sebastian furrowed his eyebrows in worry. "Are you sure you're okay to drive?"

"You disappeared for a month, Sebastian." Blaine snapped. "I don't think you really have a right to ask me things like that." He turned on the water for the faucet with a flick of his wrist, washing out his mouth and splashing his face to get some of the pastiness gone.

"I know what I just saw." Sebastian set his jaw stubbornly, standing in Blaine's way. "I know you're not okay."

Blaine pushed passed him, grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. "I just want to help you!" Sebastian closed a hand around his arm, effectively bringing him to a stop. "Why can't you just let someone help you?"

"I've done that before." Blaine tugged his arm out of Sebastian's grip. "And you know where that got me? Alone. And what's worse? I don't know if that's where I want to be or not."

"Okay." Sebastian nodded his eyes wide. "Blame me. If that makes you feel better do it."

"Go away."

"Not this time." Sebastian stressed. "I'm not leaving you again."

Blaine pretended not to hear him, stalking out towards the exit of McKinley High and trying to ignore the way his hands shook and the way his brain was, for once, focusing on one very real thing. And that was the person he had just walked away from.

* * *

**A: N –** Doesn't seem as angsty as the first chapter…. Still good?

More Sebastian POV next chapter?

Oh! By the way, I used a quote from the new Batman movie in there, along to a reference to Psych. Just to not own claim to any of those.


	3. Chapter 3

The Sting of the Rain

By: RavenHeart101

Summary: "It felt as though someone had crawled into his body and pulled out his most vital organs, leaving him rotting in an alley until he would pass away into nothingness." Or the story of why Blaine missed the fifth week of his senior year and the fall and rise from there on out.

Warnings: Male/Male pairing, mention of non-con, date rape, assault, swearing, trigger warning, verbal abuse/emotional abuse/some physical abuse, a general rising from the ashes.

I'm not going to lie and say this story is going to be happy because it's really not going to be.

**A: N –**Thanks so much for the reviews!

* * *

"_I'm gonna harden my heart. I'm gonna swallow my tears. I'm gonna turn and leave you here." – Harden My Heart by Quarterflash_

* * *

His locker slammed shut, the metal cold against his skin and his eyes dry from lack of sleep. It was a rare occurrence that Blaine got any sleep, even rarer if he got enough to last him throughout the day.

Conversations roared around him and Blaine welcomed the sound, gratefully drifting in and out of voices familiar and new to his ears. He hugged his notebooks to his chest, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them and beginning on his way to his class. There were clicks of heels and pounding of feet against the school's floor. And a voice calling out his name but Blaine could rarely be sure if he was actually hearing that or making it up.

"Blaine!" Oh. But it would seem as though he was hearing it this time, so Blaine stopped, turning around to face the doe-eyed guidance counselor, her hair looking – if at all possible – even more orange than it had before. Had she died it or something? "Would you mind stepping into my office, please?"

That wasn't entirely a question and Blaine knew it wasn't a question so he followed her with a sigh. He knew it would only be a matter of time before she was told by someone that he had been acting odd. He wondered who had told her first. Mister Schuester or Artie? Or Tina? Or anyone else from Glee Club? Perhaps it had been someone else entirely, but Blaine wasn't so sure about that. No one else in this school cared enough about him to notice when he was acting different. All they cared about was the fact that the gay kid was fading into the shadows where he belonged.

Miss Pillsbury's office was bright, pamphlets stored in their containers as neatly as they could possibly be. Her heels clicked against the floor as she walked over to her seat behind her desk, Blaine obediently dropping down in the chair in front of her, placing his books on his lap and picking at his thumb nail.

Miss Pillsbury didn't say anything for a long while, taking time to straighten her pamphlets. Blaine spent the moments of silence counting the seconds. The air was starting to close in around him and he had just opened his mouth to ask her why exactly he was there when she started talking.

Her voice was soft and soothing. Blaine couldn't help relaxing a bit, even though he knew it was a tactic she had been so carefully taught when she was a student. "I was thinking we could start off easy, today." She shuffled her pamphlets once more before leaning forward, resting her chin on her linked hands. "What have you been thinking about in terms of college?"

Blaine sat up a little straighter, trying to ignore the rising panic that spread through his body.

Oh gosh, college.

He was a senior and he hadn't even begun to think of college! What was he going to do now?

His hands started to gain a thin sheen of sweat, and he wiped it uselessly on his muted grey pants, trying to swallow even though his dry throat seemed harshly against it. "I'm…" He trailed off, narrowing his eyes and rubbing at his forehead.

He used to have a plan about college. Julliard, NYADA, New York University….

Blaine wasn't so sure if that was a suitable plan anymore.

Her eyes stared intently at his face, mapping out every little detail that showed her just how screwed up he really was. Blaine hated those looks. His mother gave him one of those almost every time she laid eyes on him.

Miss Pillsbury pursed her lips before speaking again. "It's okay to not have a plan just yet, Blaine. Especially considering how until recently your plan included moving out to New York to be with Kurt."

Blaine furrowed his eyebrows in something close to annoyance. That wasn't his reasoning for not going to New York at all. "Miss Pillsbury… I'm not even sure I'm going to pass this year, let alone do good enough to get into any college."

And now it was her time to get confused, her head tilting to the side in a way that made her vaguely look like a woodland animal. Heh. Guess Miss Sylvester was right.

"You're at the top of your class, Blaine." She spoke slowly. "Why wouldn't you pass?"

Was he at the top of his class? Wasn't that a pleasant surprise? His mother sure would be happy to hear that one when he got home. That was if she was talking to him now.

"Oh…." He looked down at his notebook again, biting at his bottom lip and praying that she would soon get to the point of this meeting.

"I was thinking about Julliard for you." Miss Pillsbury leaned down and pulled a brochure out of her bottom desk drawer. Blaine took it with numb fingers.

"Thank you." He stuffed the rough papers into his science notebook. "I don't think it's really for me, though."

She studied him again, her green eyes wide and calculating. "Listen, Blaine, just because you and Kurt are no longer together-"

"It's not because of Kurt." He snapped. He was getting a little annoyed with how much people were blaming all of his problems on Kurt lately. They were Kurt's friends and teachers first. Why weren't they showing their loyalty to him? He deserved it. If anyone was an enemy in this situation it was Blaine. "I just think… I don't think I'm going to spend my life performing, is all." Blaine shrugged uselessly and Miss Pillsbury openly gaped at him for a moment too long.

"Blaine…" Her voice trailed off. "Will told me that he was concerned about you."

Blaine didn't say anything, barely nodding to show that he heard what she was saying.

"And I can't say, in good faith, that I'm not too."

* * *

"_I'm worried about you." Sebastian slipped easily into the seat across from Blaine, taking a slow sip out of his coffee and raising a careful eyebrow at him. _

"_How very courteous of you." Blaine didn't bother looking up from his calculus book, scribbling down the work with a careful penmanship that did nothing but prove that he had been a student at private schools his whole life. _

_Sebastian sighed, his hand reaching out to grasp Blaine's wrist and halting any and all movement of the pencil against the paper. "I don't like that you're beating yourself up over him." _

"_Thank you for your opinion." Blaine wrenched his hand out of Sebastian's, still not raising his eyes to look at him, a frown on his face and his eyes blinking a bit more than was normal. _

"_Every time I see you in here now, you look even more like a kicked puppy than you ever had." Sebastian stated dryly, leaning forward and pulling Blaine's notebook out from under his hands. Blaine made a noise of indignation in the back of his throat, reaching forward almost blindly to grab it back but Sebastian was taller and quicker this time around, holding it farther away from the two of them than Blaine could reach sitting down. _

_Sebastian stared at him, taking in the red rims around his hazel eyes and the way his mouth set into a thin line. Blaine had his defenses up, and he had them up as high as they could go. "Why are you beating yourself up over this?" _

_Blaine slowly sat back in his seat, resigning himself to the fact that he was never getting that notebook back until he told Sebastian what he wanted to know. He crossed his arms firmly over his chest and tried to hold back the glare that was threatening to overcome his face. Sebastian had done nothing for him to be blaming him for. "Why do you think?" He answered with a grumble. _

"_Because you're convinced that there's nothing better out there?" Sebastian stared at him knowingly. "Or is it because he won't leave you alone and you're beginning to regret the fact that you ever broke up with him?" _

"_What would you know?" Blaine bit back. "You've never had a boyfriend that lasted longer than twenty minutes." _

_Sebastian's eyes darkened a look of frustration on his face. "No, but I know what it's like to want to be with someone that you have to let go because they're not yours to have." _

_Blaine flushed. He knew Sebastian was talking about him. Of course he knew that. It would be absurd to not know that. "Sebastian…." His voice took on a soft sort of warning, begging the other boy not to bring it up. He wasn't quite sure he could deal with that on top of everything else. _

"_I know." Sebastian looked down again, picking at the edge of Blaine's notebook with steady fingers before raising his eyes to meet Blaine's, a sort of kind mischief reflected in them. "Give me your phone." _

"_Why…?" Blaine asked even though he handed Sebastian his phone readily. _

"_Well, for one, you need to block his number because looking at your missed calls list is nauseating." Sebastian quipped dryly, his fingers deftly running over the touch screen and doing something that Blaine wasn't sure he wanted him to do. _

"_Sebastian, don't-." He began to lean forward to grab his phone out of Sebastian's grip but the other boy's soft hand against his hand stopped him. Sebastian's green eyes gazed at him with seriousness. _

"_What you did was the right thing, Blaine." Sebastian spoke slowly. "And I hate that no one has probably told you that yet but it's true. You made the right decision." _

_Blaine's resolve floated out of his body, his back hitting the metal of the chair once more, his hand merely squeezing Sebastian's weakly before dropping back to his side. Sebastian stared at him for a moment longer, trying to decide if Blaine was going to lean forward for his phone once more before going back to the task at hand. "What are you doing?" Blaine asked quietly, heaving in a deep breath and hating how resigned his voice sounded even to his own ears. _

"_Adding an event to your calendar." Sebastian winked at him, slowly sliding Blaine's phone back to him. _

_Blaine wrinkled his forehead in confusion, looking down at the page Sebastian had left open carelessly. "No." Blaine's eyes widened comically. "No, Sebastian." _

"_Oh come on, killer." Sebastian smirked at him, his voice coming out close to a whine. "Why not? Just give it a try!" _

"_I did give it a try." Blaine insisted. "And it ended in me pissing off my boyfriend and getting so drunk I tried to have sex with him in the back of a car." _

"_Sounds hot." Sebastian laughed at Blaine's look of outrage. "To put it simply, Blaine, you're single now. You don't have to worry about pissing off gayface or getting so drunk you do something you would never do otherwise." His smile filtered off his face for a moment, a sigh passing through his lips. "And, let's be honest, you need this. You need to allow yourself to go out and have a spontaneous night of fun." _

"_I can't afford a spontaneous night of fun, Sebastian." Blaine said with a frown. "I'm not you. Spontaneous never ends well for me." _

"_That's why you have me." Sebastian smiled back at him. "To keep you on track." _

_Blaine sighed and looked down at the calendar event once more before hesitantly clicking the save event button. "Okay." _

"_I'll pick you up at eight, Anderson." Sebastian stood from the table, handing Blaine back his notebook and staring at him for what was probably a second too long. "Be sure to come in your club clothes. No bowtie." He winked at Blaine once more before walking out of the coffee shop, his heart jumping a bit in his chest when Blaine let out a small laugh before turning back to his notebook._

* * *

_I'm worried about you._

How many times had Blaine heard those words in the past month?

In the past year?

In his whole life time?

More than he would like to count. Honestly, Blaine was pretty sure he would like it a bit more if people would stop worrying about him.

Miss Pillsbury stared at him with a question in her eyes, prompting him to talk. Only Blaine didn't want to talk. Maybe if she had come to talk to him a month prior – that week he showed up at school without really being in school – he would have felt comfortable talking to her. Back when he still wanted to talk about what happened and not push it so far back into the recess of his mind that it would never exist again.

"Blaine… I got a call from your mother a week ago." And that was it. That was what caused Blaine's eyes to snap up to hers, scared and alight with something so close to terror that she wasn't sure how to respond this time.

"What did she tell you?" He asked quickly, rapidly, almost too fast for her to understand.

"Everything." Her voice was soft and unsure.

A rational part of Blaine's mind told him that she hadn't told Miss Pillsbury everything. But an irrational part of his brain – the side he had been listening to more often than usual – told him that she knew and that she was going to tell everyone. That she was going to make it out so that he was the weakest human being in the world and Blaine couldn't do that. He just couldn't do that.

"You can't – you have to promise – you can't tell anyone." Blaine gasped out, his eyes wild with a panic Miss Pillsbury had never seen on a teenager's face before. Things like this didn't usually happen in Ohio.

"Blaine." She sat up straighter in her seat. "I'm not allowed to tell anyone what we talk about in this office unless I believe that you're a danger to yourself or others."

But her reassurances fell on deaf ears, Blaine's breathing still erratic and his heart going crazy in his chest. _No one was supposed to know_. "What do you know?" He tried to keep his voice steady, the panic steadily erasing itself from his eyes and hiding in the part of his brain he left open for it.

Miss Pillsbury spoke to him slowly, her voice steady and her eyes wide. "Your mother called me last week and told me that she was worried that you hadn't told me."

His mother was worried?

But what had she told Miss Pillsbury?

"She told me that after you broke up with Kurt you were depressed and regretting your decision. You started hanging out by yourself a lot, until you came home one day with plans for the weekend."

_Stop._ Blaine thought to himself, hoping that if he thought it loud enough she would hear and stop talking.

"She told me that you went out to a bar with a boy named Sebastian Smythe and that neither her, nor your father, were there when the call came in but your brother was."

"Stop." He whispered, though it was no use. She didn't seem to hear what it was he was saying.

"And that Cooper rushed to the hospital and was told that while you were at the bar Sebastian had left to go to the bathroom and when he came back you were gone. That when he found you it was too late and you had already been –"

"Stop." Blaine croaked, his eyes watering dangerously, bile rising in his throat and a pounding against his head.

"Blaine… what you went through was very traumatic and whether you believe it or not it's affecting your everyday life. You need to speak to someone about what happened. I would be glad to recommend some people that have experience in rape trauma-"

Her mouth snapped shut and her eyes widened as Blaine grabbed his back and shot out of the room as though there was a mob hot on his heels. The door swung shut loudly behind him. Luckily, all the other students were in class, none of them turning around to stare at him as he bolted down the hallway.

But there was one person standing there, her eyes wide and a bit concerned, her hand reaching out to grab onto his jacket and hold him in place. Her eyes searched his face before she seemed to make a decision, pulling him out of the school and into the fresh air.

Blaine fell into the passenger seat of Santana Lopez's car and tried to fight the memories as they assaulted him. The pain. The confusion.

_A blurry body leaning over his own, alcohol on his breath, a hand sliding down his chest. He didn't feel right. He didn't feel right at all and he didn't want this. _

"Breathe." Santana placed a gentle hand on his back as she drove her voice much more calming than Miss Pillsbury's could really hope to be. "You have to breathe, Blaine. Or you're going to make yourself pass out."

He listened to her words wisely, heaving in a deep breath and letting it go after a few seconds. The pounding against his head seemed to lighten, but it was still there. His heart slowed down with the more time he spent focusing on her hand on his back and her voice telling him to breathe. It was almost as though he had had a nightmare and Cooper was sitting next to him on the bed, his weight a constant pressure to remind him that everything was going to be okay. That his big brother had him and that everything would be okay.

"You okay?" She had pulled into a parking lot it seemed, and her voice was kinder than Blaine had ever really heard it directed towards him but he could never have said that Santana was heartless.

Was he okay?

Wasn't that a loaded question.

Blaine leaned his head against the window, staring out at the playground with a dejected look in his eyes. He never felt more like crap than he did at that moment.

Was he okay…?

"No." He said with firm conviction. He wasn't sure if he ever would be.

* * *

"So we're thinking of doing something upbeat against you guys next week." Sebastian supplied from his side of the phone, draped across his bed, his school book resting against his chest. It was eleven at night, and he had called Blaine less than five minutes before, hoping to prove just how much he wasn't going to leave.

"I'm thinking of quitting." Blaine said softly, so not to disturb Cooper as he slept lightly next to Blaine on his bed. The two of them had been having a movie night but it seemed Cooper's illness was still affecting him, even if he wouldn't tell anyone anything of that sort.

"What?" Sebastian sat up in his bed, the springs croaking in protest under the movement. "You can't just quit."

Blaine shrugged. "I don't do much there anyway."

"Blaine, you're their star."

"It's pretty hard to be their star when I don't really feel like singing."

Sebastian was silent for a moment, seemingly thinking of a way to respond. "Don't let them do this to you." He heaved a deep breath. "Don't let them take this way from you too."

"I don't… I don't know how to." Blaine shut his eyes, turning his back on Cooper's softly breathing body.

"I'll teach you."

"I think it's something I have to teach myself."

"Then I'll help you." Blaine bit at his lip. "You're not alone, Blaine. I don't know what it's going to take for me to prove that to you but I will. I promise you, I won't leave again."

They were silent for a moment. "I'm scared." Blaine whispered softly, his voice breaking.

"Me too."

* * *

**A:N –** The end of chapter three.

People still confused over what happened? Well that's supposed to happen. That's how I want it. –evil laugh- Read and review?


End file.
